The best deals are those from which everyone walks away satisfied. It is the nature of good business, the kind of thing Adam Smith, the founder of modern economics, envisioned in the 1700s. Michel Platini, the Uefa president, may have neither an MBA nor an advanced degree in conflict resolution, but he has shown that, at least when it comes to carving up club football’s biggest prize, he knows what he is doing.

On Friday, Uefa approved Platini’s plan to overhaul the Champions League format. In fact, it was more of a tweak than a revamp, but it was an important tweak. The crux of it is that Europe’s 12 biggest leagues will be guaranteed a place in the Champions League proper (under the present system it is only the top nine nations).

This is important because it means that more second-tier leagues will be represented. And that makes their Champions League television rights more valuable. Imagine that you are a broadcaster in Belgium. The Belgian champions have to go through a round of qualifying and sometimes they make it, sometimes they do not. Yet you have to decide how much you want to bid for the competition, knowing that, if there are no Belgian clubs involved, your ratings will not be very high and you will make less in advertising and sponsorship (for all the talk of globalisation in football, one thing remains constant: a domestic club, no matter how lacklustre, continue to draw more viewers than a high-profile match involving two foreign teams).

However, under the new plan, as long as the Belgian league remains among Europe’s top 12, you know that a Belgian club will get at least six matches in the group stage against high-profile European opposition during prime-time. And, most likely, they will be ratings winners.

Platini played a similar game at the top end of the European scale. Europe’s top three leagues – La Liga, Serie A and the Premier League – will have three guaranteed spots, rather than two. Again, this helps in the sale of television rights in the most valuable markets. When negotiating with the likes of BSkyB and ITV, Uefa can promise that there will be at least three English clubs involved, which, it is hoped, will prompt the television companies to part with more money.

Of course, for all this to happen, somebody had to get the short end of the stick. Twenty-two spots will be assigned directly, the remaining ten will come from the preliminary rounds (as opposed to the present 16). The difference is that teams from the 15 biggest leagues will face each other for five spots, while the remaining 38 leagues will contest the other five.

What this means is that we are likely to see more high-profile clashes in the preliminary round (had the system been in force this year we might have witnessed Werder Bremen versus Arsenal or Valencia take on Lazio). And that, too, should help the sale of television rights.

At the same time, the play-offs for the other five positions will probably throw up teams who are relatively new to the Champions League, such as the champions of Switzerland (FC Zurich), Austria (FC Red Bull Salzburg) and Hungary (Debrecen).

Which brings us back to the sale of television rights. While those countries had a snowball’s chance in hell of sending a representative to the Champions League under the old format, now they have a decent opportunity. And, again, that can only help to raise more television money.

It may seem crass to praise Uefa for merely rejigging its format to generate more revenue, but the fact that it did so while making the competition more inclusive is worthy of note.

The executive committee also approved Platini’s plan for that perennial problem, the Uefa Cup. Here, he was clearly short of ideas, so he turned it into a junior version of the Champions League, with 12 groups of four followed by knockout rounds. More importantly, the Uefa Cup will now emulate the Champions League’s centralised sale of broadcast rights, which, since its inception, has been a runaway success.

The television rights situation is a jungle, with strange kick-off times and, in some cases, matches not even making it on to television. The odds are it will take more than that to restore the Uefa Cup to its former glory (a bit of proper branding and marketing would not hurt), but at least it is a step in the right direction.

Since taking office in January, Platini has walked a fine line between satisfying commercial interests and catering to all his constituents, even the Latvias and Luxembourgs. On Friday, he succeeded in ensuring that everybody wins. At least for now.

Gambling and the game

A bit of carrot, a bit of stick. News that Uefa has asked Interpol to step in to investigate up to 15 European matches that may have been fixed or influenced by Asian gambling syndicates is worrying. At least European football’s governing body has got wind of potential ill-doing.

Beyond investigating and punishing the miscreants – if there are indeed any – would it not make sense to create a definitive firewall between football and gambling? It is somewhat difficult to talk about the pernicious influence of gambling when clubs (including AC Milan, the European champions) and entire leagues (such as Portugal’s) are sponsored by bookmakers.

The worst home team?

There are 78 clubs in Europe’s four biggest leagues. Of those, only one has yet to win a home match in their domestic competition. Who is it? Not Levante, Derby County, Siena, Duisburg or any of the other top-flight cellar-dwellers. It is AC Milan. Perhaps the gap between the haves and have-nots is not as large as some would have us believe?

gabriele.marcotti@thetimes.co.uk